Things happen. One after the other. Then I write about them out of order.

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Category Archives: What I’ve been up to

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve just re-read this whole blog (ok so it took 10 minutes!) which kinda made me think of things I wanted to write about – or at least finish off writing about, having begun their stories in the before-time.

And one of those thing was work. I posted about my crazy-busy shifts at the clothes shop over the Christmas period and about my disastrous knee. My last post about it was on Boxing Day as I dreaded the next days’ 8 hour shift after completely wrecking my knee in the store that day.

I never did that shift. Turns out my knee was more wrecked than I’d thought: when I awoke on the 27th to go in I literally couldn’t get up. Oops. I had to ring and cancel.

They said they’d let me know when my next shift would be. I still had a week on my contract and most people were kept on after Christmas anyway.

I never heard from them again.

Many jobless months passed by. Sometimes I put in effort and applied, sometimes I felt too sucked into a soup of mopeyness to do anything but bookmark possibilities. I’m not proud but hey, it was damn hard and miserable-ising!

But then! My parents went ‘Hang on – are you actually not making much effort? Come round sometime and do it with some company and moral support!’

For which I will be forever grateful. Literally in a few weeks I had an interview. WOOP WOOP! (I am immensely grateful for this and for my parents!)

Amazingly I didn’t bugger up the interview and now I create learning materials for blind and visually impaired children as well as managing a toy library!

This is genuinely the first job I’ve ever had that I actually like – it’s somewhat creative, it involves books, the people are nice and it’s actually worth doing! I’ve always tried to find the worth in whatever daft job I was doing and to not have to search and search for that worth is lovely.

An unplanned break from blogging occurred over Christmas. I really, really, struggle to maintain things like this. Every single time throughout childhood that I tried to write a diary I gave up in under 3 months.

It’s embarrassing really. Must try harder! I have so much I want to write about as well. Although now I feel I really should have started with: hope everyone reading has had an excellent Christmas and has a jolly New Year (unless you don’t celebrate these things in which case I wish you general happiness. Or perhaps just allocate these happiness wishes to a festival/celebration of your choice).

Now I’ve sorted that out I reckon it’s on with the show.

Alas the only thing that is really and truly on my mind right now is my knee. I realise how random that must sound but (annoyingly) my knee is quite a big issue in my life.

The short story is: I injured it during a fencing match in March, had some physio, re-injured it during a game of laser tag in August, waited AGES to get more physio, got a job involving massive amounts of standing up (without thinking because I never think about this, I just assume it’s all fine. I need to stop this) and continuously live with knee occasionally giving way and plunging me down to the floor. Sometimes I grab a chair and awkwardly return upright, other times it’s all the way down for me.

The job hadn’t been so much of a problem until today when I had a 6 hour shift on the busiest, most insane day of the year. For Americans: think Black Friday. It was beyond manic. And as a result: I am now in a lot of pain.

In a new twist of fate my other knee now hurts as well as it has been picking up the slack from Injured Knee. Oh joy.

I am due back at work tomorrow and the day after I and really don’t think my knees are up to it. Especially as one shift is 8 hours long.

Anyway. Looking back, this post is more of a whiny rant than anything. On the plus side it was kinda cathartic for me. Apologies if this was not such an experience for you! And also to anyone in any similar situation; I feel ya and I have my fingers crossed and good vibes going out for speedy recoveries for all!

I’ve been at my parents’ today – just visiting, asking for a bit of help with some forms I had to do (a reminder that I am not all that grown-up yet!) and having dinner.

Tonight I lingered there for as long as I could as though being there would somehow delay the arrival of tomorrow: the second day at my new job. I am so nervous!

In some ways I feel like it’s worse than the first day – at least then it was all new and I could say to anyone and everyone ‘Sorry, it’s my first day, I’m not sure’ and then go and get help. The more I’m there, the more I’ll be expected to know and I fear not picking it up well enough!

I know it’s only shift number two but still… I feel all nervy. I don’t want to talk to strangers – I’ve never been good at it. I know it’s partly why I wanted the job: the experience will be good for me. Hopefully I’ll learn how to talk to people without panicking and being extremely awkward. But I’m still freaking out now!

To calm my nerves, when I arrived home a few minutes ago, I went straight to the kitchen (pausing only to switch on our fairy lights on the Christmas tree – oh yeah we’ve decorated already!) and I made myself a sandwich. But not just any sandwich: a fabulous, hearty sandwich.

Said bready delight was made of two doorstop chunks of bread, mature Cheddar, lettuce, pretend ham (known as Quorn ham to most) and sweet chilli sauce. This sandwich will see me through the morning, this sandwich will inspire me to keep going no matter how many gales blow through the door or how many times I have to say a cheery ‘HELLO’ to an ignoring stranger.

I love this sandwich.

And then, to top it all off, I went into the living room and realised that a brand new parcel has appeared under the Christmas tree and IT’S FOR ME! Wooo!! I bloody love Christmas. I’m so excited about this present… it’s like being a little kid again. I was wondering whether the Christmas magic would diminish year by year as I grew up: so far that hasn’t happened.

So. I hadn’t realised what a long story my boyfriend tale was. I reckon it’s probably best if I continue to break it down into chunks – that was the way it really happened after all. Weekly two hour sections are an… interesting way to start a relationship. I remain undecided as to whether it is a rather good way (lots of getting to know you, limit on weekly pressure due to time constraints) or a very bad way (it can be painfully drawn out – I’ll try to ensure the retelling isn’t!)

Anyway, in the news department: I recently acquired a job! Yay. I graduated this year and (after chilling pretty much all summer) I’ve been looking for while.

Starting this week I’ll be working for a national clothing chain. I’m somewhat looking forward to it but I’m also somewhat terrified! It’s pretty different from anything I’ve done in the past so I don’t really know what to expect. We had an orientation last week which involved watching over-dramatic videos about safety and shop-lifting. They kept showing rows of merchandise and then one would fade out quickly and the whole picture would turn black and white while intense music played. So, you know. Don’t shop-lift. That’s the message there.

Anyway! It should be good. I do actually really like the shop and it seems like quite a pleasant place to work – the manager that did the induction was really keen on emphasizing employee safety and whatnot so that was nice.

In other news: it’s one month til Christmas! I am aware that is probably not news to people but I am quite excited. I love Christmas. It’s the glitteriest time of the year: what’s not to like?

I shall be off now, just wanted to do a news update post tonight. Proper service (I do intend to post every other day) will resume shortly. Things to expect: me freaking out about my meeting with a friend who I drastically fell out with this time last year but am now trying to reconnect with, me freaking out about the ongoing confusion of men in my life, me not freaking out the glittery, snowy joy that is the Yule-ish season, me freaking out about what on earth to get people for the culmination of said season. Also, I guess, me using long words and peculiar sentence structure. But that’s just business as usual really.

So this blog has been on a brief hiatus due to the most fearsome cold I have had in a very long time. I’ve coughed some much my stomach hurts. It’s beyond ridiculous.

On the plus side I recently acquired a job. So that’s good. I was off my head on cold medication when I went for the interview last Saturday so I was pretty surprised I hadn’t buggered it up in some bizarre and frightening way.

It’s a ‘for now’ job, something to earn me a bit of money while I work on wider plans, career stuff and so on. It’s in a clothes shop, which is kind of unexpected really. But I think it’s better than me trying to do an office job again. Now that was a bad time.

One of the questions in the interview was ‘What trends do you think are ‘in’ at the moment?’ That does happen to be something I kinda know about. I don’t think you’d expect it if you knew me but I find it amusing to be able to go ‘Cupcakes? So over. It’s whoopie pies now people’. Even if I just think this in my head ’cause no-one ever really seems to raise the concept of cupcakes being in or not with me. Whatever. I amuse myself.

Anyway, my interest in this shizzle fluctuates. So when he asked, I couldn’t think of a single thing that was in. My (male) friends had suggested this would be a question and proceeded to do comedic impersonations of my potential answers – during this time of mocking I did shout ‘METALLICS ARE IN. PROBABLY.’

This was the only thing that popped into my head. I said it. He looked at me expectantly. ‘And… deep colours, now it’s autumn, things like SIENNA’ He nodded, looking pleased. I felt a bit more confident and opened my mouth again ‘And for men I’ve being seeing a lot of…’ A lot of what brain? Trousers? Shoes? And then into my head popped an image: before the interview I sat in men’s shoes, waiting (and I mean the department, not that I was wearing men’s shoes or that I had found a giant pair and climbed inside) and happened to glance around at the clothes. For a split second I saw a tweed jacket with leather patches.

‘I’ve been seeing a lot of tweed and leather!’ I finished triumphantly. He nodded some more and made agree-ey noises. I don’t know whether he liked what I was saying or whether he just wanted me to shut up. Maybe he thinks I’m a fashion genius.

Either way: I got the job. Now all I want to know is whether leather and tweed really is in for men this season?